Thoughts from Someone Who Assumed “Bitcoin” Was a Machine That Converts Loose Change to Bills

Many smart people, including VF.com’s own Kurt Eichenwald, have, in recent months, published highly informed and elegantly presented opinions about the so-called Bitcoin bubble, which refers to the rise in value of a new standardized digital currency.

Other people, including yours truly, were not really paying attention to the Bitcoin thing—and attendant think-pieces—until [clears throat] this week or so. Some members of this latter group—at least one member of this latter group—truly, genuinely thought Bitcoin was one of those enormous machines in supermarkets and banks that converts large volumes of pocket change into various denominations of dollar bills. What follows is an anthology of our feelings, concerns, and theories during this (humiliatingly lengthy) time.

Why does everyone suddenly care whether the company that makes those stupid machines is worth more than it used to be? No one seemed to care much about them like six months ago. Did something happen in the world? Something with money, maybe, that we missed? Oh God, is this a Euro crisis thing?

Why do supermarkets even have those machines? Like, the machine company gets a fee of every coin converted—we think?—but what’s in it for the supermarket? Couldn’t that floor space be used for something profitable? Shouldn’t that be the think piece?

“Bitcoin bubble”: that’s overstating the case, no? How many people are possibly going to be upset or suddenly destitute if those machines are taken away from supermarkets? Or is this our “suburb blindness” talking? Maybe we don’t use those machines because we live in New York, but maybe people in other, less urban parts of the country rely on those machines. Note to self: find out before writing about Bitcoin! We do not want to sound ignorant!